Improving student learning in Mali

ACER has been working over the past two years to help develop an internal monitoring and evaluation system in Mali

Explaining students’ attitudes towards a sustainable future: Evidence from SEA-PLM 2019 data

This report, published by the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Centre, discusses how students’ attitudes towards global issues are now crucial more than ever to build a sustainable world for future generations. The first section describes why students’ attitudes towards school and learning are important and how they are linked to the Educational Prosperity Framework (Willms & Tramonte, 2015). The second section highlights the literature about the key factors which can influence students’ attitudes towards school and learning and how they are related to students’ attitudes towards sustainable development. The third section discusses the methods used for analysing the relationships between these different factors and outcomes, using data from the Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM) program in 2019. It also explains the rationale for the selection of the key variables. The fourth section presents the main results. The fifth section concludes with some key observations that support the goal of raising the awareness of future generations of their ecological footprints and to strive for a sustainable world

Trial of the Engagement Matrix: Component 1: The effectiveness of labels. Report

The Engagement Matrix (EM) was designed by the Department of Education and Children’s Services in South Australia to measure engagement levels of students enrolled in the Innovative Community Action Networks (ICAN)/ Flexible Learning Options (FLO) program once a term. Innovative ICANs work with young people (year 6-age 19), families, schools, community groups, businesses and different levels of government to encourage young people to finish their secondary education. Flexible Learning Options (FLO) was first introduced in 2006 as an enrolment option in ICAN schools which is funded by DECS. FLO is an approach that is more flexible than the traditional full-time enrolment in school to support young people most at risk to successfully complete their secondary education (DECS, 2010). In its current form, the EM is a high-level inference instrument that requires raters to provide one overall rating of a student’s engagement in (a) well-being, (b) relationships and (c) learning in five categories. These categories’ previous labels of ‘Resistant’, ‘Disinterested’, ‘Compliant’, ‘Enthusiastic’ and ‘Proactive’ have been changed to ‘Significantly disengaged’, ‘Partly disengaged’, ‘Moderately engaged’, ‘Highly engaged’ and ‘Very highly engaged’. This report describes an initiative to ascertain the effectiveness of the labels of the EM. To this end, an online survey was designed to obtain information on the levels of engagement and disengagement current and potential users of the EM associated with different labels (e.g. ‘Disinterested’, ‘Active’) and different intensifiers (e.g. ‘Very’, ‘Moderately’) as well as a combination of intensifiers and labels as currently proposed in the EM. Cognitive interviews were conducted to inform the online survey

Earning and Learning Research Project: Report to the Department for Education, South Australia

The aim of the Earning and Learning Research Partnership was to explore the reasons why a substantial proportion of successive cohorts of students in South Australia had not completed the South Australian Certificate of Education (SACE) or were identified as potential non-completers. The project officially commenced in September 2019 and was completed in August 2020.The research particularly aimed to capture the student voice behind young people’s earning and learning pathway choices, specifically identifying: why students in Years 10, 11, or 12 leave school without a documented “valid” reason (leavers); and why some Year 12 students remain enrolled in high school but appear to beat risk of not completing SACE (stayers). To actively seek the student voice, information was collected by means of Computer Assisted Telephone Interviews (CATI). This mode of data collection meant that attempts were made to contact all members of the two target populations of leavers and stayers by experienced interviewers from a demographic similar to the interviewees

A man of measure and more: John P. Keeves 1924-2020

John Philip Keeves was an eminent researcher with a lifelong quest to improve teaching and learning by being a researcher, teacher, supervisor and mentor. He produced a myriad of scholarly publications, many on topics of research design, comparative research and educational measurement. In 1962, John was recruited to the Australian Council for Educational Research and he moved to Melbourne, later becoming Associate Director from 1972 to 1977 and then Director until his retirement in 1984. During this time, he also undertook research fellowships at the Australian National University and the Institute of International Education in the University of Stockholm. After John’s retirement from ACER, he was an Emeritus Professor at both Flinders University and the University of Adelaide, where he lectured to and supervised both higher degree and doctoral students. This book honours John by bringing together memories of the man from those who knew him well, his family, his students, colleagues and friends

Some problems in the analysis of cross-national survey data

In this article three emergent problems in the analysis of cross-national survey data are raised in a context of 40 years of research and development in a field where persistent problems have arisen and where scholars across the world have sought solutions. Anomalous results have been found from secondary data analyses that would appear to stem from the procedures that have been employed during the past 15 years for the estimation of educational achievement. These estimation procedures are briefly explained and their relationships to the observed anomalies are discussed. The article concludes with a challenge to the use of Bayesian estimation procedure, while possibly appropriate for the estimation of population parameters would appear to be inadequate for modelling scores that are used in secondary data analyses. Consequently, an alternative approach should be sought to provide data on the performance of individual students, if a clearer and more coherent understanding of educational processes is to be achieved through cross-national survey research. [Author abstract, ed

What Australian students say about transition to secondary school. Final report

Life Education Australia\u27s Being Healthy Being Active project involved the collection of student voice related to the concept of school transition and the move from primary to secondary school. Students from around Australia participated in 82 focus groups, or student forums, to discuss their own positive experiences, as well as perceived needs and challenges related to their move to secondary school. Section One of this report is a literature review and environmental scan on student transition from primary to secondary school. Section Two describes the methods used to design and administer the Student Forums. This includes a description of the target population and sampling methods as well as the details of the achieved sample: 82 forums with 444 students across 15 schools. Section Three outlines the findings of the Student Forums. Section Four offers conclusions and recommendations to inform the next stage of the project, designing a suite of resources and training for teachers aimed at assisting students with the transition from primary to secondary school

Teacher professional development for disability inclusion in low- and middle-income Asia-Pacific countries: An evidence and gap map

In the Asia‐Pacific region, around one‐third of the children who are out‐of‐school have a disability and given that teacher readiness and capability are key contributors for inclusive education, it is high time for a mapping of disability inclusive teacher professional development (TPD) interventions in this region. The key objective of this evidence and gap map (EGM) is to locate evidence on interventions for in‐service TPD focussing on education for the inclusion of students with a disability in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs) in the Asia‐Pacific region. A broad range of bibliographic databases and repositories were searched electronically to identify the evidence published between January 2000 and December 2021. Key search platforms included the British Education Index (BEI), Education Research Complete (ERC), Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), SCOPUS, 3ie Development Evidence Portal (Evidence Hub) and the Campbell Collaborations Systematic Reviews and EGMs portal (Better evidence for a better world). In addition, potential program evaluations/impact reports, reviews, case studies, and program descriptions/summaries were sought through ‘snowballing’ based on searching bibliographies and reference lists of papers located during the search process, as well as specific searches of relevant grey literature. To be eligible for inclusion, studies had to contain sufficient details about TPD interventions that support early childhood educators and kindergarten to Year 12 teachers to understand the needs of students with disabilities and aid them to create inclusive mainstream classrooms and/or provide improved support for students with disabilities in special education settings. A total of 820 records were entered into the MS Excel file in which the entire data extraction process was managed. All records were screened against the predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Data were extracted independently by two reviewers and any differences were resolved through consultations. All included studies and their characteristics were extracted from the MS Excel file and uploaded to the ACER server in.csv file format. The interactive, online EGM is available here: https://datavis.acer.org/gem/disability-inclusion-TPD/. Fifty studies from 16 countries out of the 41 LMICs in the Asia‐Pacific region were identified, whereby Thailand had the largest number of studies with evidence (7) followed by China, Vietnam, and India (5 each). Two main gaps in research about professional learning were identified. First, only three studies reported interventions aimed at supporting mental health among students with a disability. Second, no studies were found that reported on how teachers could support positive student behaviour. These gaps are important because research has persistently suggested that experiencing disability is an important risk factor for young people developing mental health conditions. This report illustrates the critical value of evaluating and publishing evidence from disability inclusive TPD interventions in LMICs, including any that are ongoing, or are components of highly resource intensive large‐scale education sector programs

Interventions for anxiety in mainstream school‐aged children with autism spectrum disorder: A systematic review

Anxiety is a common problem in school‐aged children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and other psychosocial interventions have been developed as alternatives to pharmacological intervention to treat anxiety symptoms in students with ASD without co‐occurring intellectual disability. This present synthesis of evidence is a systematic review and meta‐analysis examining the efficacy of interventions for reducing anxiety among school‐aged children with ASD. The review summarizes evidence from 24 studies using an experimental or quasi‐experimental design. The authors’ conclude that there is evidence that CBT is an effective behavioral treatment for anxiety in some children and youth with ASD without co‐occurring intellectual disability. Evidence for other psychoeducational interventions is more limited, not just due to the popularity of CBT but also due to the quality of the smaller number of non‐CBT studies available

Learning outcomes in primary school children with emotional problems: a prospective cohort study

BACKGROUND: Academic difficulties are common in adolescents with mental health problems. Although earlier childhood emotional problems, characterised by heightened anxiety and depressive symptoms are common forerunners to adolescent mental health problems, the degree to which mental health problems in childhood may contribute independently to academic difficulties has been little explored. METHODS: Data were drawn from a prospective cohort study of students in Melbourne, Australia (N = 1239). Data were linked with a standardised national assessment of academic performance at baseline (9 years) and wave three (11 years). Depressive and anxiety symptoms were assessed at baseline and wave two (10 years). Regression analyses estimated the association between emotional problems (9 and/or 10 years) and academic performance at 11 years, adjusting for baseline academic performance, sex, age and socioeconomic status, and hyperactivity/inattention symptoms. RESULTS: Students with depressive symptoms at 9 years of age had lost nearly 4 months of numeracy learning two years later after controlling for baseline academic performance and confounders. Results were similar for anxiety symptoms. Regardless of when depressive symptoms occurred there were consistent associations with poorer numeracy performance at 11 years. The association of depressive symptoms with reading performance was weaker than for numeracy if they were present at wave two. Persistent anxiety symptoms across two waves led to nearly a 4 month loss of numeracy learning at 11 years, but the difference was not meaningful for reading. Findings were similar when including hyperactivity/inattention symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Childhood anxiety and depression are not only forerunners of later mental health problems but predict academic achievement. Partnerships between education and health systems have the potential to not only improve childhood emotional problems but also improve learning